“The raconteur knows too well that, if he investigates the truth of the matter, he is only too likely to lose his good story.”

“Words are too easy,” he says. He opens his book. “What looks like truth and sounds like truth might be nothing but a dream, nothing but a story I wish had happened.”

“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”

“He smiled halfheartedly. Then he frowned. "But isn't it more dangerous than that? In all the stories, they say that it's too hard. . . they lose control. . . people die. . ”

“Death finally comes, usually in the evening, when something in the raconteur fades out for good and in the midst of his story his eyes fix on the horizon and he trails off into silence, thinking of nothing. For this reason the Phaeacians consider silence an act of kindness, as sacred as guest friendship, a grant of repose to a distant stranger.”

“If you want to know the truth,” he says, leaning forward like he’s getting ready to tell a really good story, “it has to do with Kelsey. And the biggest lie of all.”And that’s when I realize the thing about the truth. It always comes out, no matter what you do.”